International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 47 (2004) 645–652

www.elsevier.com/locate/ijhmt

A new model for thermodynamic analysis of a drying process

a,* b
I. Dincer , A.Z. Sahin
a
School of Manufacturing Engineering, University of Ontario Institute of Technology, 2000 Simcoe Street North,
Oshawa, ON L1H 7K4, Canada
b
Department of Mechanical Engineering, KFUPM, Dhahran 31261, Saudi Arabia
Received 1 April 2003; received in revised form 25 August 2003

Abstract
In this paper we present a new model for thermodynamic analysis, in terms of exergy, of a drying process. Exergy
efficiencies are derived as functions of heat and mass transfer parameters. An illustrative example is considered to verify
the present model and to illustrate the applicability of the model to actual drying processes at different drying air
temperatures, specific exergies of drying air, exergy differences of inlet and outlet products, product weights, moisture
contents of drying air, and humidity ratios of drying air. As a result, this work is intended not only to demonstrate the
usefulness of exergy analysis in thermodynamic assessments of drying processes, but also to provide insights into their
performances and efficiencies. It is believed that the present model should be useful to people seeking (i) to optimize the
design of drying systems and their components and (ii) to identify appropriate applications and optimal configurations
for drying systems.

2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction tion of thermal systems. From a thermodynamic point

Drying is widely used in a variety of thermal energy
applications ranging from food drying to wood drying.
Utilization of high amount of energy in the drying in-
dustry makes drying one of the most energy-intensive
operations with a great industrial significance. The ob-
jective of the dryer is to supply the product with more
heat than is available under ambient conditions thus
sufficiently increasing the vapor pressure of the moisture
held within the product to enhance moisture migration
from within the product and significantly decreasing the
relative humidity of the drying air to increase its mois-
ture carrying capability and to ensure a sufficiently low
equilibrium moisture content [1–3].
During the past few decades, thermodynamic analy-
sis, particularly exergy analysis, has appeared to be an
essential tool for system design, analysis and optimiza-
*
Corresponding author. Tel.: +905-721-3209/2573; fax:
+905-721-3140.
E-mail address: ibrahim.dincer@uoit.ca (I. Dincer).
0017-9310/$ - see front matter
2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.ijheatmasstransfer.2003.08.013
of view, exergy is defined as the maximum amount of
work which can be produced by a stream of matter, heat
or work as it comes to equilibrium with a reference en-
vironment [4,5]. Exergy is not subject to a conservation
law, rather exergy is consumed or destroyed, due to ir-
reversibilities in any process It is a measure of the po-
tential of a stream to cause change, as a consequence of
not being completely stable relative to the reference
environment. For this reason, the state of the reference
environment, or the reference state, must be specified
completely. This is commonly done by specifying the
temperature, pressure and chemical composition of the
reference environment.
The exergy method can help further the goal of more
efficient energy-resource use, for it enables the locations,
types, and true magnitudes of wastes and losses to be
determined. Therefore, exergy analysis can reveal whe-
ther or not and by how much it is possible to design
more efficient thermal systems by reducing the sources of
existing inefficiencies. Increased efficiency can often
contribute in a major way to achieving energy security in
an environmentally acceptable way by the direct re-
duction of irreversibilities that might otherwise have
646 I. Dincer, A.Z. Sahin / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 47 (2004) 645–652
Nomenclature
CP specific heat
e specific exergy
E_ rate of exergy flow
h specific enthalpy
m_ mass flow rate
P pressure
Pv vapor pressure
Pg saturation pressure of water
Q_ rate of heat transfer
R gas constant
s specific entropy
T temperature
v specific volume
xv mole fraction of vapor
x0v mole fraction of vapor in air at dead state
Greek symbols
g efficiency
occurred. This makes exergy one of most powerful tools
to provide optimum drying conditions. Exergy analysis
becomes more crucial, especially for the industrial
(large-scale) high-temperature drying applications.
During the past decade, many studies have been
undertaken by several researchers e.g., [6–24] to inves-
tigate thermodynamic aspects of thermal systems and
processes ranging from refrigeration to drying.
Of these, Sieniutycz and Kubiak [6], using irreversible
thermodynamics, define and analyze dynamic limits for
various traditional and work-assisted processes of se-
quential development with finite rates important in en-
gineering. These dynamic limits are functions rather
than numbers; they are expressed in terms of classical
exergy change and a residual minimum of dissipated
exergy, or some extensions including time penalty. They
consider processes with heat and mass transfer that oc-
cur in a finite time and with equipment of finite di-
mension. Such processes include heat-mechanical and
separation operations and are found in heat and mass
exchangers, thermal networks, energy converters, energy
recovery units, storage systems, chemical reactors, and
chemical plants.
Demirel and Sandler [8] use linear-nonequilibrium
thermodynamics to express the entropy generation and
dissipation functions representing the true forces and
flows for heat and mass transport in a multicomponent
fluid. These forces and flows are introduced into the
phenomenological equations to formulate the coupling
phenomenon between heat and mass flows.
Miguel [9] presents a theoretical and experimental
research in the field of mass transport through porous
x humidity ratio of air
x0 humidity ratio of air at dead state
/ percent relative humidity of air
Subscripts
0 dead state
a air
av average
d destruction
ev evaporation
ex exergy
f saturated liquid state
g saturated vapor state
l loss
p product
q heat transfer related
v vapor
w water
media and employs a thermodynamic model for the
change of mass inside porous media and the fluid flow
through porous media. An experimental study is carried
out to provide a thermodynamic chart of a porous me-
dium and to infer the parameters required by the theo-
retical approach. The effect of the moisture content and
temperature on fluid transport properties is also inves-
tigated.
Topic [10] presents a mathematical model for exergy
analysis of an industrial system for high-temperature
forage drying. It allows qualitative analysis of the indi-
vidual components as well as the entire system using a
software package. It also presents, as an example, the
application of the model and the software, for forage
drying, the changes of exergy and the basic elements and
system operation quality indicators depending on the
significant parameters.
Syahrul et al. [11–14] conduct a thermodynamic
analysis of the fluidized bed drying process of moist
particles to optimize the input and output conditions.
They use energy and exergy models and study the effects
of the hydrodynamic and thermodynamic conditions
such as the inlet air temperature, the fluidization velocity
and the initial moisture content on the energy efficiency
and the exergy efficiency. The analysis is carried out
for different materials. A good agreement is achieved
between the model predictions and the experimental
data.
The primary objective of this work is to develop a
new thermodynamic model for exergy analysis of the
drying process of moist solids and define exergy effi-
ciency as a function of heat and mass transfer para-
 I. Dincer, A.Z. Sahin / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 47 (2004) 645–652 647

meters. An illustrative example is presented to highlight
the importance of the present model and show how it is
important for the drying process analysis and optimi-
zation. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, the pre-
sent work is the first study incorporating heat and mass
transfer parameters into the exergy model and exergy
efficiency.
the drying air and product. Therefore, we write the mass
balance equations for these three elements as follows:
Product : ðm_ p Þ2 ¼ ðm_ p Þ4 ¼ m_ p ; ð1Þ
Air : ðm_ a Þ1 ¼ ðm_ a Þ3 ¼ m_ a ; ð2Þ
Water : x1 m_ a þ ðm_ w Þ2 ¼ x3 m_ a þ ðm_ w Þ4 : ð3Þ

2.2. Energy balance equations

2. Modeling
The energy balance equation can be written for the
Here, in this section, we introduce a new model for
entire system in the following manner, by taking input
energy and exergy analysis of drying processes. The
energy terms equal to output energy terms:
schematic presentation of the systems with input and
output terms is shown in Fig. 1. As clearly seen in the
m_ a h1 þ m_ p ðhp Þ2 þ ðm_ w Þ2 ðhw Þ2
figure, we have four major components to take into
consideration as follows: ¼ m_ a h3 þ m_ p ðhp Þ4 þ ðm_ w Þ4 ðhw Þ4 þ Q_ l ; ð4Þ

• Point 1. Referring to the input of drying air to the where

drying chamber to dry the products.
• Point 2. Referring to the input of moist products to
be dried in the chamber.
• Point 3. Referring to the output of the moist air after
taking the evaporated moisture from the products.
• Point 4. Referring to the output of the dried prod-
ucts. In fact, their moisture contents are reduced to
a certain level required for each commodity of the
product.
Here we now write the mass, energy, and exergy balance
equations for the above system, as a control volume
system, shown in Fig. 1 since writing the balance equa-
tions correctly is an essential way of solution to such
systems.
2.1. Mass balance equations
In order to write the mass balance equations for the
dryer shown in Fig. 1, we consider three components
such as product itself, air and the water which exits in
h1 ¼ ðha Þ1 þ x1 ðhv Þ1 ’ ðha Þ1 þ x1 ðhg Þ1 ; ð5Þ
h3 ¼ ðha Þ3 þ x3 ðhg Þ3 : ð6Þ
Note that here the values of h1 and h3 can directly be
obtained from psychrometric chart.
The heat loss rate from the chamber becomes
Q_ l ¼ m_ a ql : ð7Þ
2.3. Exergy balance equations
In this section we now write the exergy balance
equation for the entire system in the way we did it for
energy balance equation for the input and output terms.
Therefore, it can be written as follows:
m_ a e1 þ m_ p ðep Þ2 þ ðm_ w Þ2 ðew Þ2
¼ m_ a e3 þ m_ p ðep Þ4 þ ðm_ w Þ4 ðew Þ4 þ E_ q þ E_ d ; ð8Þ

where the specific exergy for point 1 can be obtained

as

e1 ¼ ½ðCP Þa þ x1 ðCP Þv
ðT1  T0 Þ

  
T1
 T0 ½ðCP Þa þ x1 ðCP Þv
ln
T0
 
P1
 ðRa þ x1 Rv Þ ln
P0
  
1 þ 1:6078x0
þ T0 ðRa þ x1 Rv Þ ln
1 þ 1:6078x1
 x 
1
Fig. 1. Schematic of drying process with input and output þ 1:6078x1 Ra ln : ð9Þ
terms. x0
648 I. Dincer, A.Z. Sahin / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 47 (2004) 645–652

The specific exergy for point 3 can be obtained as ðew Þ3 ¼ ½hðT3 ; Pv3 Þ  hg ðT0 Þ

   
e3 ¼ ðCP Þa þ x3 ðCP Þv ðT3  T0 Þ Pg ðT0 Þ
    T0 ½sðT3 ; Pv3 Þ  sg ðT0 Þ
þ T0 Rv ln ð16Þ
T3 x0v P0
 T0 ½ðCP Þa þ x3 ðCP Þv
ln
T0
  and
P3
 ðRa þ x3 Rv Þ ln
P0
   Pv3 ¼ ðxv Þ3 P3 : ð17Þ
1 þ 1:6078x0
þ T0 ðRa þ x3 Rv Þ ln
1 þ 1:6078x3
 x 
3
þ 1:6078x3 Ra ln : ð10Þ 3. Illustrative example
x0

The specific exergy for the moist products results in In this example we will show how to conduct an
exergy analysis of the dryer and investigate the changes
ep ¼ ½hp ðT ; P Þ  hp ðT0 ; P0 Þ
 T0 ½sp ðT ; P Þ  sp ðT0 ; P0 Þ
in exergy efficiencies versus various system parameters
ð11Þ such as mass flow rate of the drying air, temperature of
the drying air, the amount of products coming in, the
and the specific exergy for water content results in initial moisture content of the product, the final mois-
ture content of the product, specific inlet exergy, hu-
ew ¼ ½hf ðT Þ  hg ðT0 Þ
þ vf ½P  Pg ðT Þ
midity ratio, and net exergy use for drying the products.
  The following is the procedure to conduct the exergy
Pg ðT0 Þ
 T0 ½sf ðT Þ  sg ðT0 Þ
þ T0 Rv ln : ð12Þ analysis to determine the exergy efficiency of the drying
x0v P0
process:
In addition, exergy flow due to heat loss can be
identified as follows: • Provide m_ a , m_ p , ðm_ w Þ2 , ðm_ w Þ4 and x1 ! calculate x3 .
    • Provide T1 , P1 , T2 , P2 , T3 , P3 , T4 and P4 ! determine
T0 T0 Q_ l .
E_ q ¼ m_ a eq ¼ m_ a 1  ql ¼ 1  Ql ; ð13Þ
Tav Tav • Provide ðCP Þa , ðCP Þv , Ra , Rv , Tav and ðxv Þ3 ! deter-
mine E_ d and gex .
where Tav is the average dryer’s outer surface tempera- • Use steam tables, the psychrometric chart and the
ture. dead state properties accordingly.
Here are some example data for the reference dead
state (i.e., the environment): T0 ¼ 32 C, P0 ¼ 1 atm, In the solution one may consider the following param-
x0 ¼ 0:0153, x0v ¼ 0:024 (mole fraction of water vapor in eters as inputs or known parameters to proceed for the
air). solution:
• m_ a , m_ p , ðm_ w Þ2 , ðm_ w Þ4 , x1 , T1 and T2 .
2.4. Exergetic efficiency of drying process
In the following Table 1, we list the thermal data
Since we deal with exergy analysis of a drying pro- related to products and drying air that are used in the
cess, we can go one step ahead and define the ex- calculations to obtain exergy efficiency change with mass
ergy efficiency for this drying process as the ratio of flow rate of air, temperature of drying air, specific ex-
exergy use (investment) in the drying of the product ergy, specific exergy difference, moisture content of the
to exergy of the drying air supplied to the system: product, and humidity ratio of drying air.

Exergy investment in the evaporation of moisture in the product

gex ¼
Exergy of drying air supplied

or 4. Results and discussion

ðm_ w Þev ½ðew Þ3  ðew Þ2

gex ¼ ; ð14Þ Fig. 2 shows exergy efficiency with inlet air mass flow
m_ a e1
rate as product mass is variable. Increasing mass flow
where rate reduces the exergy efficiency, provided that further
increase in the mass flow rate of air does not affect
ðm_ w Þev ¼ ðm_ w Þ2  ðm_ w Þ4 ; ð15Þ considerably the exergy efficiency. This occurs because
 I. Dincer, A.Z. Sahin / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 47 (2004) 645–652 649

Table 1
Thermal data used in the example
Thermophysical properties State 1 State 2 State 3 State 4
Panel A
Temperature (C) 55–100 25 25–70 50–95
/ (%) 10–35 55–85 60–95 15–30

Panel B
ðCP Þa 1.004 kJ/kg K
ðCP Þv 1.872 kJ/kg K
Ra 0.287 kJ/kg K
Rv 04615 kJ/kg K
Tav 50 C ¼ 323.15 K
ðxv Þ3 0.055
T0 32 C ¼ 305.15 K
P0 101.3 kPa
w0 0.0153
ðxv Þ0 0.024

m_ a (kg/s) mp (kg) m_ p (kg/s)

Panel C
0 1 0.0002778
1 5 0.0013389
1.5 10 0.0027778
2 15 0.0041667
2.5 20 0.0055556

0.15
0.15
1 kg
0.14 1 kg
5 kg
0.14 5 kg
10 kg 0.13 10 kg
20 kg
20 kg
0.12

ηex 0.13 0.11

ηex
0.1
0.09
0.12
0.08
0.07
0.11 0.06
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 50 55 60 65 70
ma (kg/s) T1 (°C)

Fig. 2. The variation of process exergy efficiency with mass flow Fig. 3. The variation of process exergy efficiency with temper-
rate of drying air at different product weights. ature of drying air at different product weights.

of increasing mass flow rate enhances the exergy into the
system, which in turn lowers the exergy efficiency, based
on Eq. (14). Moreover, increasing the weight (mass) of
product considerably influences the exergy efficiency,
i.e., exergy efficiency increases with increasing product
mass. In this case, exergy used to dry the product in-
creases with increasing product mass. Consequently, this
enhances the exergy efficiency.
Fig. 3 shows the variation of exergy efficiency with
the inlet drying air temperature as product mass is
variable. The behavior of the curves is similar to those
shown in Fig. 2. Increasing drying air temperature re-
duces the exergy efficiency, since exergy efficiency is in-
versely proportional to the exergy rate of drying air. As
one may expect, the exergy efficiency changes mono-
lithically as drying air temperature increases further.
Moreover, the magnitude of exergy efficiency increases
considerably with increasing product mass.
Fig. 4 exhibits the variation of exergy efficiency of the
dryer versus specific exergy content of the drying air
650 I. Dincer, A.Z. Sahin / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 47 (2004) 645–652

0.16

1 kg
0.14
5 kg
10 kg
0.12 20 kg

ηex 0.1

0.08

0.06

0.04
2.5 5 7.5 10
Specific exergy e1
Fig. 4. The variation of process exergy efficiency with specific exergy of inlet drying air at different product weights.

entering the dryer as the amount of products changes 0.1584

from 1 to 20 kg, respectively. As expected, the exergy
efficiency decrease with increasing the specific exergy at 0.1582 0.5 kg/s
1 kg/s
point 1 for the same amount of products since there will 1.5 kg/s
2 kg/s
be more exergy loss in the system, resulting smaller ex- 0.158 2.5 kg/s

ergy efficiency.
Note that exergy efficiency of the dryer varies with
the difference in specific evaporation exergies of water
content at different mass flow rates of drying air in the
dryer. In conjunction with this, increasing the specific
exergy difference results in decreasing exergy efficiency.
For the same magnitude of the specific exergy difference,
greater mass flow rate of drying air results in smaller
exergy efficiency, due to fact that higher mass flow rates
of drying air consume higher energy and hence causing
greater exergy losses.
Fig. 5 shows the exergy efficiency with product mass
as the mass flow rate of drying air is variable. The exergy
efficiency therefore increases linearly with product mass.
The increase in the exergy efficiency signifies as the mass
flow rate of drying air reduces. This is because of the fact
that the exergy efficiency is inversely proportional to the
mass flow rate of drying air. Moreover, this linear in-
crease of exergy efficiency with product mass indicates
that the specific exergy difference between the product
and the exergy exiting over exergy of the drying air re-
mains constant for the given product mass.
Fig. 6 depicts the exergy efficiency with the moisture
content of the incoming products as the mass flow rate
of evaporated water is variable. The exergy efficiency
increases with increasing moisture content of the prod-
ηex 0.1578
0.1576
0.1574
0.1572
0 5 10 15 20
mp (kg)
Fig. 5. The variation of process exergy efficiency with product
weight at different mass flow rates of air.
ucts. This is more pronounced as evaporation rate in-
creases. In this case, energy utilized for drying the
product increases when moisture content of the products
increases. Consequently, for given air inlet conditions,
energy utilized in the system enhances. This, in turn,
improves the exergy efficiency of the system.
Finally, Fig. 7 exhibits the variation of the exergy
efficiency of the drying process against the humidity
ratio of drying air entering the dryer at different mass
flow rates of drying air. As is clearly seen in the figure,
there is a linear relationship between the exergy effi-
ciency and the humidity ratio. Interestingly we note that
exergy efficiency changes considerably small (decreas-
 I. Dincer, A.Z. Sahin / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 47 (2004) 645–652 651

0.13 ponents and (ii) to identify appropriate applications and

optimal configurations for drying systems in general
0.125 1 kg engineering systems.
5 kg
10 kg
Consequently, some intuitive advantages of exergy
0.12 20 kg analysis of the can be listed as follows as a core outcome
of this project:
ηex 0.115

• It provides more proper accounting of the loss of

0.11
availability of heat in drying system using the conser-
vation of mass and energy principles together with
0.105
the second law of thermodynamics for the goals of
0.1 design and analysis.
55 60 65 70 75 80 85 • It gives more meaningful and useful information than
φ2 (%) energy analysis regarding the efficiency, losses and
performance for drying systems.
Fig. 6. The variation of process exergy efficiency with moisture • It is more correct reflecting the thermodynamic and
content of the product at different moisture evaporation rates. economic values of the operation of drying systems.
• It is an efficient technique revealing whether or not
ing slightly) with increasing humidity ratio of the drying and by how much it is possible to design more effi-
air. cient drying systems by reducing the inefficiencies in
The work presented in this section is intended not the existing units.
only to demonstrate the usefulness of exergy analysis in
thermodynamic assessments of drying systems, but also
to provide insights into their performances and efficien- 5. Conclusions
cies. This work forms comprehensive part of a broader
project by the investigators to examine thermodynami- This paper has presented a new model for thermo-
cally the drying systems. The analysis methodologies and dynamic analysis, in terms of exergy, of a drying pro-
results presented should be useful to engineers seeking (i) cess of moist solids subject to air drying. Mass, energy
to optimize the design of drying systems and their com- and exergy balance equations are written, and exergy

0.16

0.14 0.5 kg/s

1 kg/s
1.5 kg/s
0.12 2 kg/s
2.5 kg/s

ηex 0.1

0.08

0.06

0.04
0.02 0.025 0.03 0.035 0.04 0.045 0.05
w1
Fig. 7. The variation of process exergy efficiency with humidity ratio of drying air at different mass flow rates of air.
652 I. Dincer, A.Z. Sahin / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 47 (2004) 645–652
efficiencies are derived as functions of heat and mass
transfer parameters. An illustrative example is also pre-
sented to verify the present model and to illustrate the
applicability of the model to actual drying processes at
different drying air temperatures, specific exergies of
drying air, exergy differences of inlet and outlet prod-
ucts, product weights, moisture contents of drying air,
and humidity ratios of drying air. It can be concluded
that the present model appears to be a significant tool
for design and optimization of drying processes of moist
solids.
Acknowledgements
The authors acknowledge the support provided by
KFUPM for this work under a research grant # ME/
ENERGY/203 and thank Mr. M.M. Hussain for con-
ducting the simulations.
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